A is for Aden and Z is for Zanzabar

A is for Aden and Z is for Zanzibar... Now what is between? For the world wide classical era philatelist and stamp collector, a country specific philatelic survey is offered by the blog author, Jim Jackson, with two albums: Big Blue, aka Scott International Part 1 (checklists available), and Deep Blue, aka William Steiner's Stamp Album Web PDF pages. In addition, "Bud" offers commentary and a look at his completely filled Big Blue. Interested? So into the Blues...

Friday, October 28, 2016

Expensive Stamps in Big Blue - United States

1861 Scott 71 30c orange "Franklin"

Into the Deep Blue
The United States is, by far, the most expensive country with spaces in Big Blue.

There are 201 spaces that require a CV $10+ stamp or more.

And of those, 86 are CV $35-$1,000, in the "Most Expensive" category. !!!

( For the "rules" of whether an expensive stamp is required in a BB space, as well as a link to the previously published "Most Expensive" countries, scroll to the end of this blog post.)

(Be aware that 2011 and 2014 CV are used here. So, these are not necessarily "current" values, but should serve as a "ball park" relative value scale.)

What follows are four lists for your interest.

A) The Top Twenty-Two Most Expensive Stamps in Big Blue (CV $200 or greater) from the United States, Canada, and the counties Aden through Quelimane - essentially, three-quarters of BB. (I am still working on the Reunion to Zululand portion, so those stamps are not included here.)

A) The Country has to be on the roster of the "69" or "97 Big Blue. Those countries that are found in the '47/'41 editions, but not in the '69/'97 editions are not included on the list.

B) The stamp will need to be actually the least expensive choice that works for the space provided by Big Blue. Yes there are quite expensive stamps that can be put in Big Blue, but if a cheaper stamp definitely works within the "intentions" of the space, the more expensive stamp doesn't count.

C) In some case a "most expensive stamp" choice is forced by a blank space, indicated by a ( ) around the Scott number. The "least expensive" one is chosen that fits the criteria of the space.

The U.S. has many expensive stamps in the classical era, and many of them are given spaces in Big Blue. Of course, the stamps can be found for much less than full CV, especially if one is willing to accept minor faults, or less than great centering.

6 comments:

What a timely post... I was only last night revisiting Michel Begins excellent (but likely outdated) study on cheapest/most expensive countries to collect for the classic era. US comes as 7th on his most expensive countries list:

Great list Keijo. The surprising ones for me on the list are Kiauchau (didn't think about it), and Kenya-Uganda-Tanzania (who knew?).

The countries at the top of the list all have uber expensive rarities or have many stamps in the $CV thousands category (Niger Coast Protectorate- 15 stamps @ $3000 - $110,000).

I suspect, though, for the vast majority of WW collectors mining the classical era (99.9% minus 0.1% "Bill Gross" expense account types), their listing will look different, and skewed toward the home country of the collector.

I liked the post! According to Keijo's list, I noticed that the British philatelic areas are very expensive. I think the rarity of the philatelic issues is the main factor. The beauty of a rare stamp is its complete lack of market correlation, which is driven by collector's passion to spend money on it. Best wishes, Catalin